The first two partnerships feature insights from the sky to earth. Herndon, Virginia-based Radiant Solutions, a Maxar Technologies company (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.), and TellusLabs, a satellite imagery and machine learning company, announced a partnership to offer agricultural intelligence products to provide insight on the world’s food supply, for the remainder of the Northern Hemisphere’s 2018 agricultural growing season and into the start of the Southern Hemisphere’s growing season. Those stakeholders such as food companies, government agencies and commodity traders who need a better understanding of the world’s current crop conditions and end of season expectations will benefit from this alliance.

Radiant Solutions’ Weather Desk™, an information platform enabled by advanced analytics applied to weather data, provides daily agricultural insights into how weather conditions are impacting agricultural markets. TellusLabs’ Kernel, enabled by machine learning applied to satellite imagery, provides insights into crop yields and agricultural forecasting. The offerings combine to deliver users an information to help them leverage the power of advanced analytics applied to persistent and pervasive weather and imagery data to derive insights into the agricultural supply chain dynamically and at a global scale.

3DR and Yuneec, two founding members of the Dronecode Software Consortium, announced a U.S.-headquartered joint venture to bring Dronecode platform-based products to market. The joint venture, which will operate as 3DR Government Services, will focus on serving the security and open platform needs of U.S. government customers and their vendors in the construction and engineering industries.

3DR Government Services will combine Yuneec’s hardware expertise and manufacturing scale with 3DR’s software. The first product from 3DR Government Services is the Yuneec 3DR H520-G, which is being unveiled at the InterDrone Conference in Las Vegas this week.

From traffic in the sky to traffic on earth, the following research study and enterprise data platform provider focus on AI and analytics and in the last case, takes into account blockchain technology.

From Leuven, Belgium, GNSS receiver manufacturer Septentrio recently announced the addition of the AsteRx-i S to its GNSS/INS product portfolio.

According to company materials, the AsteRx-i S combines Septentrio’s compact, multi-frequency multi-constellation GNSS engine with ultralight external industrial grade MEMS based IMU. Calibrated for wide temperature ranges, the AsteRx-i S delivers accurate and reliable GNSS/IMU integrated positioning to the cm-level as well as full attitude at high update rates and low latency.

Septentrio product manager Gustavo Lopez answered some questions for GISCafe Voice about the addition of AsteRx-I S to the open interface of Septentrio’s core technology.

1. What problems are you attempting to solve with the AsteRx-i S?
One important aspect in high-end positioning technology is relying on advanced systems which combine the benefits of GNSS with the benefits of industrial grade IMUs. A GNSS/INS solution gives extra possibilities to applications working in difficult environments or where 3D reliable orientation is needed.

2. Is the technology for AsteRx-i S something you created in house or was it as a result of an acquisition?

The AsteRx-i S (same as the AsteRx-i V) uses an external quality industrial grade IMU however all the GNSS algorithmic engine is Septentrio’s proprietary bringing the stamp of quality and performance for what we are normally well known for. This means that the product also inherits all the intuitive and open interface of Septentrio thus making it easy-to-integrate in multiple applications.

CoreLogic®, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, recently announced the launch of its new publicly-accessible risk information resource center, Hazard HQ(tm). This new information hub will offer individuals, media and companies high-level analyses and up-to-date data insights on the immediate risks natural catastrophes pose to properties across the country.

Senior leader of content and strategy for CoreLogic, Maiclaire Bolton Smith, spoke with GISCafe Voice about the new resource center and how it is dedicated to offering catastrophe insights about events while they are happening.

Does Hazard HQ take in citizen information?

No, it focuses on information from CoreLogic. Corelogic can provide insight and information, whether wildfire, hurricane, earthquake or flooding, and offers insights on number of properties that could be at risk, or on an area that could be impacted and the home value that could be lost. No information is pulled from citizens. It’s our opportunity to share information with others to help them protect themselves and be able to restore from financial catastrophe.

It really evolved as a way for us to share information easily.

We’ve had all these devastating wildfires this summer already. We always try to learn from the events that have happened. We’ll always be providing more information on research. For example, with regard to the wildfire that happened in Sonoma County, California last year that impacted Santa Rosa, over the past six months we’ve done a lot of research looking at the reconstruction from that wildfire and the state of the homes being rebuilt and looking at some of the insurance impacts and implications from that event happening. An event doesn’t end when an event ends, it’s a long process afterwards to really recover from it, so we will continue to share more information on an ongoing basis as we continue to research events.

How do you expect risk analysis you’ve done last year is going to impact or help in the assessment of the damage of the Mendocino fire, as an example, right now?

The biggest factor is that it brings awareness to the impact that these devastating events do have. We hear about the hundreds of thousands of acres burned, but a lot of times the fires are burning in remote areas and there are not a lot of properties at risk. It’s devastating to see the area burned, but what we want to focus on is bringing awareness to insurers and other people about where there are homes and properties at risk, and focus on the human aspects of it. What people can take away from our previous research, is

Being prepared for hazards that could happen, whether it be a flood, earthquake, hurricane, etc. We’re prone to disasters all the time in various parts of the country.

Awareness of the events that can happen, and our main goal is to work with insurance companies and help them understand what properties are valued at to be able to insure properties properly.

The general public needs to know they need insurance for a lot of these hazards. Insurance can really help them recover from events when they do happen. Hopefully they won’t be impacted but if they are, to know their risk and to be able to accelerate their recovery is a huge bonus.

Say a customer is obtaining insurance for things they expect but what about these events that happen way beyond anyone’s expectations?

Unfortunately, those rare events are the wild card that are really beyond planning scenarios. I’m actually a seismologist by training and I spend a lot of time training people to know their earthquake risk. I always say the number one thing people can do to prepare for an earthquake, is believe that it can happen, and that’s the same with all disasters. The possibility is there that it may occur. These are hard for people to conceptualize and plan for.

At CoreLogic we do risk modeling where we look at the range of events that can happen – the more common events to the very extreme events. That’s the information we provide to insurance companies, including what could the worst-case scenario even look like.

I have spoken to CoreLogic many times. In the past the company has said with the fires we’re expecting an increase in losses to homes because people have built closer to forests, and forests are not cleared as often, we run the higher risk. (more…)

The U.S. has been rocked by tragic school shootings and other violence over the past years, with very little deterrent to this increasing trend.

At the Esri User Conference 2018, a talk entitled “School Safety GIS – Survey123” was conducted by GIS specialist for Detroit Public Schools, Randall Raymond, and Officer Adele Gardner, Detroit Public Schools Community District Police Department, who outlined the work they have been doing over the past year to use social media and other geospatial tools to detect, analyze and visualize potential dangers to kids in schools.

“We were able to create a social media mapping feed that was out-of-the-box Esri available and discovered while it did what we wanted it to do in some ways, it was very manual and labor intensive,” said Raymond. “You needed someone to constantly be looking at the feeds that were coming in. We partnered with Esri and they suggested a company named DataCapable, that was doing social media for event detection, event notification and event mapping for the power and gas industry. We figured it was the same for a big power company and they would be interested in what we’re doing. They retasked some of what their software does to give us more analytics and give us more understanding of potentially dangerous situations happening at schools by monitoring for specific events. We could use machine learning and artificial intelligence to go through messages and quickly determine the validity of them, confidence in them and decide if there is action that needed to be taken.”

Raymond retired from upper administration in the Detroit Public Schools in 2013 and has continued the work with the school system since that time, helping with high school programs and consulting with their police department. He works with Officer Gardner helping them to continue to learn to use their ArcGIS tools and do more strategic thinking about deployment of police resources.

The value of social media has been long recognized by Officer Gardner, who has extensive examples of problems with kids in Detroit Public Schools and social media being used to organize the meetings where kids to go to events in the city and rob people and steal from cars, etc. But privacy is obviously a very big issue, according to Raymond.(more…)

UK laser scanning and monitoring companies 3D Laser Mapping Ltd and GeoSLAM Ltd have merged to create a highly innovative mobile mapping and monitoring technology provider. While geospatial technology supplier and innovator, 3D Laser Mapping, works with its customers to capture and analyze their world in 3D, GeoSLAM is a “go-anywhere” technology with its state-of-the-art 3D handheld mobile mapping technology solutions.

Shareholders agreed to merge the businesses to take advantage of new world market opportunities, increased R&D capability and ensure greater market reach. Shareholders include Graham Hunter, the founder of 3D Laser Mapping and CSIRO’s Data61, Australia’s data innovation network, part of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency. The contribution of CSIRO since the formation of GeoSLAM in 2012, has been significant in creating the market for handheld mobile mapping.

Graham Hunter, CEO of GeoSLAM, spoke with GISCafe Voice about the merger and what it means for customers of both products.

Location intelligence technologies are a ubiquitous part of business, both retail and commercial. A powerful tool at their disposal is the Census Business Builder – Small Business Edition as well as their Regional Analyst Edition. These are innovative, simple-to-use cloud-hosted mapping applications that allow users to easily navigate and use U.S. Census Bureau key demographic and economic data to help guide their research into opening a new, or expanding an existing, business. The tool dynamically combines Census geography and data, such as:

Demographic, socioeconomic, and housing data from the American Community Survey;

Business data from the County Business Patters, Non-employer Statistics, Economic Census, and Survey of Business Owners;

President and CEO of Esri, Jack Dangermond, was proud to point out at his Plenary at the Esri User Conference this year, this is the 38th conference, and the purpose of the conference is the same as it was 38 years ago: to be together, share knowledge and have fun.

Robby Deming, Media Strategy Manager for Esri, created a Story Map of the stadiums played in during the 2018 World Cup. Also, DigitalGlobe, who provided the high-resolution satellite imagery for the story map, offered valuable background on the collection of the imagery and how it would serve other industries besides the World Cup itself.